Fully Love

Welcome: Good morning, and welcome to those who are here for the first time today. Thank you for choosing to worship here at Liberty. 

Introduction: We are in a short series named Fully Known, Fully Loved. Today, we look at our pursuit to fully love others. Last week, we saw that God fully knows us and still fully loves us. 

So, how can we fully love others and be fully loved? 

Could I know a lot about God and still not really know him?  

Does my love for others actually prove that I know God — or have I just studied him?  

This message seeks to answer this for us. 

Illustration: Every year, hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. go into cardiac arrest outside a hospital. Their survival almost always depends on someone nearby stepping in immediately. One study following over 142,000 cardiac arrest cases found that even though more than half of them happened in front of witnesses, only about a third of those victims actually received bystander CPR. 

That gap has a name — the bystander effect. And here's what's striking: it isn't only untrained people who freeze. In Ann Arbor, a man named Jerry Parris collapsed in a park. A bystander named Mendez, who had CPR training, ran over to help — and froze anyway. He later admitted, "I couldn't remember how to put my hands together," and said it took him several seconds before it clicked. He knew CPR. In that moment, knowing wasn't the same as doing.  

He recovered, started compressions, and Parris lived. 

So here's the question underneath that story: knowing what to do has never been the hard part. Doing it — loving someone enough to actually step in — is. 

That's the tension of our text today. You can know the truth about God. You can even be right. But knowledge that doesn't move you toward love isn't the same as knowing him.

Let’s look at two passages that make that case directly.

1 Corinthians 8:1–3 ESV

1 Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. 3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.

Look at 1 John 4

1 John 4:7–10 ESV

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Paul and John are saying the same thing from two directions: information can inflate you, but only love proves you actually know God.

The main idea of this message is:

Main Idea: Knowing about God can feel like knowing God, but real love for others is the only real proof that we really know Him.  

Transition: So if love is the proof, the next question isn't "what do I know?" — it's “where has my love actually broken down?” That takes honesty. It starts with looking inward before we can love outward.  

Point #1 - INVENTORY — God, we make a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves, courageously facing where sin has hurt our relationships. 

Psalm 51:6 ESV

6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

Explanation: To understand this verse takes some digging, but it gets clearer in context. What God wants from us is truthfulness about sin—loving his truth more than we love our image. David tried to hide his sin with more sin, and it cost him. Only after he finally confessed did he understand what God wanted all along: honesty, not delay.  By waiting as David did, he caused himself more pain and hardship. God couldn’t heal what David kept concealed. 

Later in this psalm, David said:

Psalm 51:16–17 ESV

16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

God sees through every facade.  He isn't asking for performance — he's asking for authenticity. The Hebrew word for "delight" means to take pleasure in. God takes pleasure in a heart willing to be truthful, not a life dressed up to look finished. Because God cannot heal what we keep concealed.

Illustration: In the ancient Roman and Greek art markets, dishonest sculptors had a trick for hiding flaws. If a statue cracked or chipped during carving, they'd patch it with a mixture of wax and marble dust. To a buyer browsing in the shade, the statue looked flawless. But leave it out in the sun, and the wax would melt—exposing the damage underneath.  

Honest sculptors marked their work differently. They labeled it sine cera — which means clean, pure, or “without wax.” Legend has it that our English word sincere grew out of that phrase: a sincere life is one with nothing melting under pressure, because there was nothing hidden to begin with. 

Most of us are living "with wax." We patch over what's cracked so we look finished in front of our family, coworkers, or church. But God already knows exactly where the cracks are. He isn't asking us to look flawless—he's asking us to stop hiding what the heat will eventually expose anyway.

Argument: The inventory process in Regen can be intimidating and daunting, but it is one of the most freeing parts of it. The honesty God asks for doesn't add weight. It unloads weight we didn't realize we'd been carrying for a long time. A fearless and honest inspection of our lives to become God’s instruments of love is one of the most courageous acts of love for the people in our lives. 

Sticky Note: God cannot heal what we keep concealed.

Transition: If inventory is facing the wound honestly before God, confession is the next step — refusing to carry that truth alone.

Point #2 - CONFESS — We confess to you, God, to ourselves, and to one another the exact nature of our sins, because real love refuses to hide.

Passage: Look at 1 John 1:7-9

1 John 1:7–9 ESV

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Explanation: Confessing to God is fairly easy for most people to accept. Confessing to other people is where most of us tense up. If you have a Catholic background like me, “confession” might bring up images of a priest and a booth — that's not what this passage means. 

Walking in the light means experiencing the cleansing Jesus offers as we admit and confess sin to God. And the fellowship that follows isn't incidental — it's the relational wholeness that authenticity and accountability produce in the body of Christ.

Hiding protects your pride; confession protects your heart.

Illustration: Many people know that John Newton was a ruthless slave ship captain who later became a Christian and wrote Amazing Grace. What fewer people know is that he didn't write it as a man quietly hiding his past. 

When Newton became the pastor of a small, rural church in Olney, England, ministers were expected to project flawless piety. Newton did the opposite. He published a detailed, uncensored autobiography, An Authentic Narrative, laying bare his past sins and moral failures in plain view of his congregation.

That honesty didn't push people away — it drew them in. Newton started small-group prayer and discipleship gatherings, and alongside his close friend, the poet William Cowper — who battled deep depression — he began writing raw, honest hymns to help their broken congregation confess their own struggles. He understood that hiding protected his pride; confession protected his heart. 

Out of that culture of shared brokenness, Amazing Grace was first introduced at a New Year's Day service. Newton's confession created space for others to stop pretending. His vulnerability became an act of love that healed a fractured community.

Argument: John Newton practiced the two-fold promise of 1 John 1:7. The Apostle John writes: 'But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.’  

Notice the order. We tend to think walking in the light only affects our relationship with God — confess privately, get cleansed, done. But John ties our vertical honesty directly to our horizontal relationships: if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

In a small group or our Regeneration setting, walking in the light means taking off the mask—having the courage to say, “This is where I'm broken. This is where I'm tempted. This is where I sinned this week.”

Why does that matter? Hiding protects our pride. Confession protects our heart. When we refuse to be authentic, we protect our pride and sabotage our relationships. Secret sin isolates — it makes us defensive, guarded, numb. We cannot truly love. 

Sticky Note: Hiding protects our pride; confession protects our heart.

Transition: Since inventory and confession lead us to love deeper, repentance, our next point, is the proof of real, deeper love.  

Point #3 - REPENT — God, we become entirely ready to turn from our patterns of sin and turn to you, because real love proves itself in a changed life.  

Passage: Let’s look at 2 Timothy 2:22

2 Timothy 2:22 ESV

22 So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

Explanation: Paul is reminding Timothy what makes him useful to Christ's mission: repentance. Not just turning away from evil, but turning toward something — righteousness, faith, love, peace. That's the full picture of repentance: away from what's destructive, toward what's Christlike. You can name your struggle honestly and still stay unchanged if you never actually turn. 

I love the way the NLT phrases this: 2 Timothy 2:22

2 Timothy 2:22 NLT

22 Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts.

Repentance is a change of heart that changes our direction. 

The “youthful passions” aren't limited to sexual sin—it's any pattern common to immaturity: struggles like arguing, love of money or power, self-reliance, greed, and pride. Paul calls Timothy away from all of it, toward a community pursuing purity of heart together. Repentance is a change of heart that changes our direction. 

Illustration: In 1857, a businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier started a small noon prayer meeting in New York City. It began with six people. Within months, it grew to thousands gathering daily to pray—the start of what historians call the Layman's Prayer Revival. 

Why did this grow so fast?  Because real repentance was happening, not performed repentance. One story from that revival: a hardware store owner urged the businessmen at the prayer meeting to let their lives set a holy example. A well-known manufacturer — his name isn't recorded — followed him back to his store afterward and confessed that he'd been cheating him for years. He didn't just apologize. He made it right.

That's the difference. He could have shed a tear in the meeting, said "God, forgive my greed," and walked out feeling better about himself. That's how most of us treat repentance—a private emotional transaction that costs us nothing. While this man's books could have looked spotless to any accountant, he knew full well they weren't spotless before God. So he walked back, put his reputation on the line, and repaid what he owed.  

Argument: That's the proof of repentance. It isn't just changing your mind — it's changing your direction. If we take an honest inventory and find sin, the evidence that we're actually walking in the light is what we do with it that week.  

If you repented of a bitter, critical spirit in your small group, the proof is going home and speaking words of life to your spouse. 

If you repented of dishonesty, the proof is walking into your boss's office and telling the truth.

If you repented of greed, the proof is opening your hands and living generously.

God is not looking for a church that is merely sorry for its sin. He is looking for a church that is ready to turn from its sin. That is when revival hits a community.

 Sticky Note: Repentance is a change of heart that changes our direction. 

Transition: Remember Jerry Parris from the introduction, collapsed in that park? 

Conclusion: The bystander Mendez knew CPR. He'd been trained. But knowledge alone almost cost Jerry his life—it took several long seconds for knowing to turn into doing. The same is true of us. We can know a great deal about God and His love and still freeze right where it matters most—at the point of actually loving someone. Inventory, confession, and repentance are how we stop freezing. They're how knowledge becomes love in motion. 

Jerry Parris lived because someone moved past what he knew into what he did. That's the whole message today: love isn't proven by what we know. It's proven by what we do with what we know. 

Diagnostic Questions:  In a few minutes, I am going to ask us to respond in the invitation. Before we respond, let's ask ourselves some questions, one point at a time: 

INVENTORY 

Have I been avoiding an honest look at how sin has hurt my relationships? 

What am I dressing up with "wax" instead of bringing into the light? 

CONFESS 

Is there something I've confessed to God but never confessed to another person? 

Whose trust have I lost that I still haven't owned my part in? 

REPENT 

Where have I said I'm sorry without actually changing direction? 

What would it look like this week to prove repentance through action, not just words? 

Next Steps: Every one of us has a next step to take this morning. 

Salvation - Are you willing to call on Jesus today to forgive your sins and trust Him alone for salvation? Baptism - Have you followed Jesus in obedience through baptism, publicly identifying with Him? Membership - Are you ready to commit to this church's mission by becoming a member? Live It Out - What is God asking you to pursue more deeply, starting today?